Wayne Newton liked Mitt Romney's performance in Tuesday's Las Vegas debate.

Newton, aka Mr. Las Vegas, is a Republican who attended the event at the Ventian Hotel. Afterward, he told McClatchy, that while he's "still open" about who he might support, "Romney handled himself well."

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, was blasted by rivals Rick Perry and Rick Santorum on illegal immigration and health care, respectively. Newton was particularly sensitive to the immigration exchange.

Perry, the governor of Texas, said Romney engaged in the "height of hypocrisy" on curbing illegal immigration. Perry said Romney had hired illegal immigrats. No, Romney said, he did not.

He employed a lawn service at his home that employed undocumented aliens. Romney's campaign said he had no knowledge the company employed illegal immigrants.

Newton understood. "Romney spoke in a way I understand," Newton said, explaining he works in places where there may be undocumented aliens--but how could he know?

Romney, Newton said, "handled himself in a dignified way, a way that's presidential. He could've gotten angry, but he didn't. He kept his cool."

Polls suggest Republicans will do well on election day--but that doesn't mean Americans have big expectations for the GOP.

A new Pew Research/National Journal poll found that among registered voters, 32 percent said it would be better for the nation if the GOP wins control of Congress, while the same number think things would be better if Democrats maintain majorities. Thirty percent said it wouldn't make any difference.

The poll was conducted Oct. 21-24 among 1,006 adults. Margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

One reason for the findings may be that voters aren't crazy about the Republican agenda. While theiir plans to allow more offshore drilling, changing Social Security to allow private accounts for younger people and repealing health care legislation are somewhat popular, other ideas are not.

For instance, voters are split on freezing most government spending as well as a constitutional amendment barring children of illegal immigrants to automatically become U.S. citizens.

To read the poll: http://people-press.org/report/668/#congress

The U. S. Senate will return to Washington briefly Thursday to adopt a measure to beef up U.S.-Mexico border security and to honor the late Ted Stevens.

Stevens, U.S. senator from Alaska for 40 years, died Monday in a plane crash. The Senate is expected to adopt a resolution honoring the veteran Republican.

The border security measure, adopted by the House of Representatives earlier this week, would provide $600 million in emergency funds; it is expected to pass easily. The Senate is then not due to return to Washington until Sept. 13.

After days and days of complaints from the right that President Barack Obama was lying about a talk with Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., Kyl now says his original take wasn’t exactly right.
Kyl set off the brouhaha when he told a Tea Party gathering in Arizona that Obama admitted in a private meeting that he was holding U.S.-Mexico border security “hostage” to get a broader immigration bill through Congress.
 “Here’s what the president said: ‘The problem is,’ he said, ‘if we secure the border, then you all won’t have any reason to support comprehensive immigration reforms,’” Kyl said.
“In other words, they’re holding it hostage. They don’t want to secure the borders unless and until it is combined with comprehensive immigration reform.”
The White House said it wasn’t so.
“The president didn't say that,” spokesman Bill Burton said. “Sen. Kyl knows that the president didn't say that. But what everybody knows, because the president has made it perfectly clear, is that what we need to do is everything that we can to bring about comprehensive immigration reform.”
Conservative blogs, talk radio and TV hosts sided with Kyl.
"I totally believe him,” said Laura Ingraham
“The man has never misstated nor misguided me at any point,” said Lou Dobbs. “He's a man of absolute intellectual integrity. This is not a man for the White House to be attacking, suggesting, declaring, in effect, that he's a liar."
"Jon Kyl's integrity is beyond reproach,” said Fox morning Anchor Brian Kilmeade.
“He doesn’t make stuff up,” added co-anchor Steve Doocy.
“I believe him implicitly,” said Charles Krauthammer.
But Krauthammer added, “On the other hand, Obama is a very smart man, and I don't know that he would actually explicitly say that, because it really is cheap and tawdry. So I suspect maybe something in between happened."
Indeed, the National Review reported Friday that Kyl now says it was a little different.
“Kyl tells us that the comments were `taken a bit out of context,’ and that the `they’ he was referring to was the left, `the president’s base,’ and not the administration,” National Review reported.
“’I did not try to start a fight. This meeting happened a month ago and we were talking in the context of his political problems. He was talking about how they think that if we secure the border, you guys [Republicans] won’t have the incentive to work on comprehensive immigration reform.”
Said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs: “Well I guess this finally settles it.”

Rep. Walt Minnick, D-Idaho, snagged an unusual endorsement Thursday from the Tea Party Express, the group with the greatest national stature in the loosely organized Tea Party movement.

Minnick is the only Democrat to land an endorsement from the organization, which had a rally Wednesday in Boston with former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and another rally today in Washington. The Tea Party Express announced its slate of endorsements and targets today at the Washington rally, held to mark the April 15 tax deadline.

They weren’t soliciting an endorsement, said spokesman John Foster, and the endorsement caught Minnick’s campaign off-guard.

Minnick doesn’t agree with all aspects of the Tea Party movement, Foster said, but the campaign welcomes support from a broad coalition of people.

“Walt has worked very hard to show that he can represent a wide variety of interests,” Foster said. “We’re not going to stop talking to people who we disagree with on some things.”

Minnick in 2008 was endorsed by the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League, NARAL. He’s also seen support in the form of donations from individual members of firefighters and carpenters unions, Foster said.

Foster said they suspect the endorsement came in part because of Minnick’s voting record: he voted against the stimulus bill, cap-and-trade legislation and the health care overhaul.

“They are fundamentally about fiscal responsibility,” Foster said of the Tea Party.
Minnick was the only member of the Idaho congressional delegation to attend a Tea Party town hall in Boise in August, at the height of the national fervor over health care reform.

A Miami-based Hispanic group is mounting a national campaign against conservative CNN talk-show host Lou Dobbs, urging the network to restrain what they call "disparaging and inaccurate'' remarks about Hispanic immigrants.

Jorge Mursuli, a longtime human rights activist in South Florida who now heads Democracia U.S.A., hopes to create a grassroots movement to silence Dobbs' unrelenting crusade against illegal immigrants.

Mursuli contends that Dobbs has blamed immigrants for a rise in leprosy in the United States, of pushing for a so-called "superhighway'' of illegal immigrants from Mexico to Canada and contributing to an illegal immigrant crime wave.

"If CNN is, in fact, the most trusted name in news, we really have to ask them to hold Mr. Dobbs to journalistic standards,'' said Mursuli, whose group plans to launch an anti-Dobbs website, www.EnoughisEnough!.com.

Read more here.

Florida Republican Sen. Mel Martinez, who took a few licks in the bruising immigration battle of 2006, says he's ready to push for immigration reform again -- but he says President Obama has got to be engaged.